136 BIG GAME SHOOTING —~ 
John overtook them twelve or fifteen miles off, and came 
back to camp with his horse laden with bars of lead and 
the prettiest and most courteous letter from Mr. Webb, who 
would not hear of my buying lead with ivory, and sent mea 
bountiful supply and a number of kind words. It was a most 
‘generous help, most graciously rendered, and enabled me to 
enjoy my homeward march. Without it I should have been 
troubled to feed my followers for 1,400 miles, for I had only a 
very small reserve. 
These were the only elephants I shot that were not eaten, 
and I hope some wandering Bushman, vulture led, may have 
come across even them. I missed Livingstone. He was 
driven back by fever breaking out amongst his party, and 
returned on the other side of the river, to which I myself 
crossed over after a time, but he had then gone by. 
Inspanning one morning whilst here, a shout of ‘ Ingwe’ 
from the men, a rush of the dogs, and up jumped a leopard in 
the midst of us, and made for a large tree, which he climbed. 
I was beneath it in a minute with a gun, and for half an hour with 
three or four men searched for him along the branches without 
avail. At last we gave it up, and went after the waggons, think- 
ing he must have managed to get away unseen by us. One man 
however stopped behind for a minute to tie up his bundle, and 
before we were a hundred yards off the cunning beast raised 
his head from a bough, came down, and made away too quickly 
for us to get back, on the man’s halloo, in time to shoot him— 
he did wondrously in hiding himself. Leopards were not com- 
mon thus far in ; they clung to the rocks and hills in and near 
the colony. I only saw four or five of them, but one performed 
a cleverish trick. The Kafirs were sitting round their fire under 
a large tree, when, climbing along an overhanging branch, 
he dropped into the circle, caught a dog, cleared the ring at a 
bound, and got safely away. ‘Towards the Colony, where the 
baboons are plentiful, the leopard preys on them, though, when 
in large herds, the old dog baboons will frequently drive him 
off ; their canine teeth are formidable weapons. Most amusing 
